The present application relates to Japanese Patent Application No. 2000-19138, filed Jan. 27, 2000, entitled xe2x80x9cHair Dryerxe2x80x9d. The contents of that application are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
The present invention relates to a hairdryer.
Generally, a hairdryer is provided with an air outlet opening having a nozzle which controls expellation of heated air through the air outlet opening to perform drying and setting of human hair.
As illustrated in FIG. 9, a conventional hairdryer disclosed by Japanese patent laid open JITSUKAISHOU 58-143604 includes an outer nozzle (9) and an inner nozzle (10) such that an area of the air outlet opening of a nozzle (8) can be controlled.
However, if the area of the opening of the nozzle (8) is narrowed to increase the speed of the heated air, the amount of the air is inevitably decreased, causing loss of air flow. As a result, the kinetic energy of the air is decreased and the thermal energy of the air is increased, thereby causing excessive increase of temperature of the air. This eventually may result in damaging the hair.
In order to solve this problem, it has been proposed that only the air flow around the central axis (x) of the nozzle should be suppressed while the air flow proximate to the circumference of the nozzle (8) is not suppressed so that the speed of the air can be increased without decreasing the amount of the air, and accordingly energy loss of the air can be minimized. However, as in the case of the conventional hairdryer shown in FIG. 9, if the air outlet opening of the inner nozzle (10) is narrowed, the air causes interference at the air outlet region (10f) of an inner nozzle (10). Because of this, even under this configuration, loss of air flow cannot be avoided.
The present invention is a hairdryer. The hairdryer comprises a housing body which has an opening at a front end thereof and an air intake at a rear end thereof. A handle is disposed at a bottom portion of the housing body. A heater and a fan are disposed within the housing body. An outer nozzle is disposed at the front end of the housing body and forming an outer air outlet opening. An inner nozzle is disposed inside the outer nozzle and forming an inner air outlet opening. The inner nozzle comprises an inclined portion and a parallel portion. The inclined portion extends from a predetermined position inside the outer nozzle toward the inner air outlet opening while inclining toward a central axis of the outer nozzle. The parallel portion extends from a front end of the inclined portion toward the inner air outlet opening approximately in parallel with the central axis of the outer nozzle.